Page 133 of Child's Play

Squeak

Kim was relieved to hear the sound. The play came before death. If he was still playing there was hope for Ellie Lewis.

But who the hell was she dealing with?

She moved slowly, stepping around a spillage of crisps that had not yet been cleared.

The movement jolted a memory into her brain. It travelled along the events of the week and finally hooked up to a random finding like a magnet.

The trace of NaCl.

Sodium Chloride.

And finally, she knew who it was.

One Hundred Three

Bryant headed out of the leisure complex and took out his phone.

He’d been careful to check every inch of the place to make sure Jared Welmsley hadn’t done the deed and then jumped into the steam room to clean himself off.

‘Hey, Stace, I’ve—’

‘Bryant, where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you.’

‘I’m in the leisure complex. No signal. Area checked and it ain’t Welmsley.’

‘I told you that makes no sense but can you pass me to the boss?’

‘Not with her, Stace. She’s at the other dead spot.’

Silence for a second.

‘So, you both go to communication dead spots, alone, without telling me?’

Bryant could hear the scold in her voice.

‘Stace, what have you got?’

‘The traumatic event, Bryant. The one that drove Beth Nixon into the mental health facility. It was her grandmother, her legal guardian. She was murdered eight years ago.’

‘Jeez, Stace, that’s bad but what does that have to do with us?’

‘It’s the way she was killed: on a roundabout at a park up in Burnley, a spider’s web. Tied to it with barbed wire, turned and turned until her brain smashed all over the ground.’

Bryant didn’t even speak as he ended the call and started moving quickly.

He had to find the boss and he had to do it quick.

One Hundred Four

Kim took a deep breath and stepped out from behind the castle.

‘Hello, Eric, nice to see you again,’ she said to the man she’d interviewed at the very first crime scene. The man who had thrown up and whose vomit had contained high traces of sodium chloride – salt – found on the boots of one of the attending police officers. Because he’d made himself sick from the bottled water for effect.

‘Inspector, lovely to see you, too,’ he said, calmly, as he glanced towards his companion.

Kim tried to appraise the scene before her without allowing the horror to show on her face.